


Serendipity on a Train Platform

by yikesola



Series: Bingo2019 [5]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 1914, Alternate Universe - Historical, Getting Together, M/M, Mild Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-21 05:49:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21069908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yikesola/pseuds/yikesola
Summary: Phil turns to search for a bench to sit on while waiting for his train, but turns too quickly. He slams into the person behind him, someone about as tall as him and also about the same age. Someone now drenched in Phil’s spilt coffee and swearing up a storm.A fic about stains and connections.





	Serendipity on a Train Platform

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [phandomficfests](http://phandomficfests.tumblr.com/) Bingo Fest!  
Bingo Prompt: Praise Kink, Handjobs  
Betaed by the wonderful [ahappydnp](http://ahappydnp.tumblr.com/)

Phil’s legs are stiff by the time he’s been sat on the train a few hours. He hates having to go this far south. Hates the noise of London, the crowd, the bustle. It’s not half so packed in his sleepy northern town. Even York, where he attends university, boasts more geese than people. Or might, if anyone bothered to count. The train journey alone is taking a lot out of him, between the glowering man who took his ticket and the chatty woman sat next to him who has hardly stopped to take a breath since the train began moving. 

He wishes he’d thought to bring some of his school books to busy himself with, or to spare a penny on a newspaper. It would save him the trouble of keeping his face animated, as though he cares about this woman or the fact that her son only wants to eat carrots and she’s trekking all the way down to London to get her brother to set him straight before he turns orange. Normally, he could be interested in a story like that. But today, he’s tired. Today his legs are stiff and he’s grateful as hell that he’s going to be switching trains in Reading because it will give him the chance to buy something hot to eat at the station and to find a hopefully less-chatty person to sit next to so he can rest for the last bit of his journey. 

The train pulls into the station. There’s something about the steadily slower chug chug chug that matches his heartbeat. 

Phil stands and stretches and decides against hot food when he sees a stall selling coffee. He loves a coffee in the afternoon, when he can get one.

The mug is warm in his hand. He breathes it in and feels more alive than he has all morning. 

He turns to search for a bench to sit on while waiting for his train, but turns too quickly. He slams into the person behind him, someone about as tall as him and also about the same age. Someone now drenched in Phil’s spilt coffee and swearing up a storm. 

“Oh my gosh!” Phil cries, feeling sick and nervous and terribly sorry. “Are you alright?” 

“Fucking shit,” the stranger says through gritted teeth. There is a puddle at his feet of the coffee, and a great brown stain from his ribs down the front of his trousers. His face is beet red. “What the fuck, mate?” 

“I’m sorry,” Phil squeaks, “I’m so sorry! Are you hurt? It was hot.” 

“It was hot alright.” The stranger looks conflicted between wanting to wring Phil’s neck and not wanting to move lest the pain grows worse. 

Phil is feeling frantic. He grabs the stranger’s wrist and drags him towards a drinking fountain, digging in his rucksack for a handkerchief. The stranger follows him, even if the obscenities keep spilling from his mouth. Once found, Phil soaks the handkerchief in the cool water of the fountain, wrings it out, and hands it over. 

The stranger dabs at his chest but hisses out, “This isn’t doing shit.” 

Phil spots a nearby sign for the toilets and drags the stranger in, still apologizing. His shaking hands work on the buttons of the stranger’s shirt while the stranger is rinsing the now stained handkerchief in the sink. Phil’s guilt grows when he sees the angry red burns on the stranger’s exposed skin. 

He kneels and blows cool air onto the burns. 

“Don’t do that,” the stranger says. He places a hand on Phil’s shoulder with enough gentle pressure to push Phil back. 

“I’m sorry,” Phil repeats for the dozenth time. 

The stranger laughs, a sound somehow coated in anger but still a laugh. “It’s just... get up. On your knees like that,” he shakes his head, “not a good idea.” 

“Oh,” Phil says. He stands. He hadn’t thought about kneeling, or about the intimate gesture of blowing on a stranger’s exposed stomach. But now that it’s been pointed out to him, the embarrassment he’s been feeling since this whole nightmare began is given another layer. “I’m Phil Lester,” he says mostly because to apologize again feels redundant. 

The stranger laughs a second time. “I’m Dan Howell,” he says as he continues to dab at the stain on his shirt. 

The colour on Dan’s face looks less like anger now and more like a blush, more like something else. Perhaps, Phil thinks in the way like recognizes like, this handsome boy is also an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort. 

Phil is rarely so lucky, this latest example of his clumsiness going to prove that. But maybe...

They get Dan’s shirt off and soaking in the sink. Phil digs around in his bag for a salve for Dan’s burns and finds one. As this happens, Dan tells Phil he’s headed into London to meet with a friend of his uncle’s. He wants to convince the man to help pay for university. He’d worn his good shirt and doesn’t have time to get all the way back home to Wokingham for another just because of Phil’s blunder. 

Dan wrings the handkerchief out a third time and begins to dab at the coffee stain on his trousers. 

The trousers are dark and wool, and Phil thinks the stain won’t be a problem after it dries. The shirt is not so lucky. It is white and thin, the coffee colour blending into the slight tan of Dan’s skin. It will dry there and not even the washerwoman’s tonics will be able to save it. The shirt might be salvaged later for patches or rags, but it is in no condition to be worn around London. 

“Here,” Phil says after digging further in his bag. “I have this spare, or I can wear it and you can have the shirt I’m wearing. Whatever you prefer.” Neither shirts Phil has are as crisp and white as the one Dan had been wearing. His spare is red with thin cream lines and the one he’s wearing is a forest green. His trip to London isn’t business like Dan’s is. He didn’t need a proper shirt. 

Dan weighs his limited options, holds up a hand when Phil starts to apologize again, and says, “The red is fine. Thank you.” 

“You're thanking me?” Phil sputters out a laugh. 

“It’s better than no shirt at all. And the train is leaving soon.” 

*

Reading to London is a quick journey. Dan and Phil sit together without reasoning why. Phil asks Dan what he wants to study in uni.

“Anything but brick making,” he laughs. “That’s what my town is known for. It’s all my family has done for ages. I don’t have the back for it.” 

Phil doesn’t comment what he wants to, about how the back he saw in the toilets seemed plenty muscular to him, wiry and capable. Instead he says, “I didn’t know what I wanted to study either. Just that I liked to read.” 

“You do a lot of that in any course.” 

Phil nods. They fall quiet. Dan turns towards the window. 

“How long will you be in London?” Phil asks.

“Just the day. I’ll stay the night with my uncle’s friend if our meeting goes well. If it goes sour I’ll buy a ticket for the last train out.” Dan turns back to look at Phil. “You?”

“Two days. I have a room at The Grange. Do you know where that is?”

Dan’s face twists into a teasing grin. “This a proposition?” 

Phil blushes. Once more, he hadn’t realized his own forwardness. Usually he’s on guard, tense with the effort of stifling anything that could so much as hint at his queerness. But around Dan, it seems, that careful control has been spilt like his afternoon coffee. He shakes his head.

Dan laughs. “Didn’t think so.” Then he turns back to the window. “Shame,” Phil hears him say. 

*

They part with Phil offering yet another apology. Dan disappears into the crowd. 

Phil makes his way to The Grange, attempts a nap but doesn’t actually fall asleep, then leaves for the reason of his journey. 

A studio. 

His brother’s studio, where he works on his music and says he has room for Phil after uni to have a little desk for himself to write at. Phil’s general distaste for London could be shoved aside if he were to be able to spend as much time with his brother as he did when they were children. 

It’s a fine studio. There is room enough for a desk— just barely— and Martyn takes him for lunch where they try to ignore rumours of trouble abroad despite everyone at the tables around them discussing it. Neither of them have much stomach for war. They’re hoping that scuffle about the Austrian Archduke will quiet down before it boils over and Phil has to worry about more than what he’s expected to do after graduation. 

Martyn asks him if he’s courting. If he’s still writing letters to that girl from home. If he thinks he’ll be in London for very long at all before he wants to get married. Phil lets the questions roll off his shoulders like water on a duck. They’re old questions and he gives old, well-practised answers. 

After lunch, Martyn crawls back among his papers and his piano. They’ll see each other in the morning, but for now Phil wanders around the city. 

He tries to wrap his head around the reality of living here. Maybe it could feel like home. 

Not getting that nap after the train ride begins to catch up with him. He hops on a streetcar and makes his way back to the hotel. This time when his head hits the pillow, he falls asleep right away. 

*

Phil wakes to the sound of a knock at the door. The sun has set since he first laid down and that unsettles him for a moment. He slowly remembers where he is and why this room smells so different from his dorm room at York when there is a second knock, more timid this time. 

He stands on wobbly legs, cracks open the door, and sees the blushing face of Dan before him. 

“Hi,” he says, as timid as his second knock. He looks Phil over and adds, “I didn’t mean to wake you.” 

“Don’t worry,” Phil says, opening the door wider. He’s surprised by Dan being here, but not unpleasantly so. 

“I, err, I came to return your shirt.” 

“You didn’t have to,” Phil can feel his face turning red, “It was all my fault. The least I could do is let you keep the shirt.” 

Dan smiles and steps inside. “I want to,” he says, “The stained one will be fine for heading back home. My uncle’s friend even liked the red, so thanks for that.” 

“It went well then?” Phil asks. “Your meeting?” 

Dan’s smile widens. Phil has a wild urge to poke the two deep dimples on his cheeks. “Better than I thought it would. He’ll pay for uni and I’ll pay him back when I’m working, but he’ll pay for my boarding too. Here in the city! I hadn’t dreamed to ask for that, I thought I’d have to get a job somewhere to pay for that.” 

Phil thinks about telling him he’ll also be in the city next year. Instead he just grins and slaps a hand on Dan’s shoulder. “Well done!” he says, “No more brickmaking.” 

“These delicate things are saved,” Dan says holding up his hands. Phil can’t help but notice the size of them. He blames that on his still sleep-groggy brain. 

And on the way Dan’s eyes have lingered on him since he shut the door. 

And on the fact that he still hasn’t moved his own hand from Dan’s shoulder. 

The grogginess sloughs away as a buzz in the room begins to catch Phil’s attention. A buzz between him and the handsome stranger who hardly feels like a stranger. He squeezes the hand on Dan’s shoulder, half a question, half unintended. Dan doesn’t shake him off. 

They’re both trying to ask the question they’re very afraid of asking. Because if one of them answers wrong, the consequences are heavy. 

Phil moves his hand at last, but slowly, running halfway down the length of Dan’s arm before being separated from that warmth. Instead of the very important question that’s hanging on his lips, Phil asks the nearly as important, “Are staying with your uncle’s friend tonight?” 

Dan shakes his head slowly. 

“Are you taking the last train?” Phil almost whispers. 

Dan steps a little closer. Phil realises he never turned on any lights, that only the streetlamp outside his room’s thin curtains is why he can see the freckles across Dan’s face. “I came to return your shirt,” Dan says again, as though that answers the question. 

Phil lifts a hand towards the top button of his shirt at Dan’s neck. His hand is shaking, but he unbuttons it just fine. He unbuttons the next. Then the one below it. 

He sees the raw burns from his coffee on Dan’s chest and stomach as he unbuttons to expose the skin, and feels awful all over again. “I’m sorry,” Phil pouts. 

Dan brings a hand to Phil’s chin. “Don’t apologize again,” he says. Then he kisses him. 

*

Phil doesn’t apologize again. Instead he breathes Dan in, tastes his kisses and the salt of his skin from the June heat. Instead, he sighs out praises that have Dan panting into his ear. That happens unintentionally, but Phil is pleased to find out how much he likes it. He gets his shirt off Dan and bites into the tanned shoulder now exposed to him. “God,” he whispers. He gets a hand on either side of Dan’s face and looks into his eyes for any hint of hesitation. “God, you’re perfect.” 

Dan whines. Phil wants to hear it again. 

He kisses him, stepping slowly until Dan’s back is against the hotel door. “Your skin,” Phil says, moving to Dan’s neck, “so soft.” 

Dan’s hands are on Phil’s hips. He’s gripping him like he’s afraid Phil will run away. Or vanish. 

“How is your skin so fucking soft when you’ve been wasting your life with brickmaking?” Phil laughs, tracing his fingers along the skin of Dan’s chest that hadn’t been affected by his spilt coffee. Dan laughs too, but doesn’t answer him. 

Every new piece of Dan that’s revealed to him amazes Phil. He says so— tells Dan what perfect hands he has as Phil brings one up to his lips, and tells Dan what perfect legs he has as Phil kneels to tug Dan’s trousers off, and tells Dan what wonderful noises he makes because every praise of Phil’s is followed by a whine or whimper or cry. 

Phil feels drunk off of it. Dan’s already in his bloodstream. The buzz in the air has turned into a crackle and that crackle is igniting the both of them. 

Phil works his own clothes off while putting as much focus as he can on Dan. He wants his lips everywhere. Soon he settles with his lips on Dan’s, kissing him almost languidly while their hands move down to wrap around each other’s lengths. But soon the kiss is more of a panting into each other’s mouths as the rushing feeling overtakes them both. Dan’s hand is strong on Phil’s cock. Strong and sure and so fucking good. 

When he comes he bites down on Dan’s collarbone. It’ll be covered by a shirt that is covered in coffee stains in the morning, but for now he knows he’ll be able to trace that mark with his finger by the moonlight. 

Dan comes with Phil’s name falling from his lips, and Phil’s never heard that before. It unlocks something— something big, unwieldy. Something he isn’t sure what to do with. 

*

They sit together on the train the next day, London to Reading. They don’t pay a penny for a newspaper, though the headlines are in big bold ink and foretelling doom. Instead, they talk about books they loved as children, and about the mischief they got up to. Then they stand at the platform, where Dan will begin the journey home to Wokingham and Phil will catch his connection to York. Phil thinks about how badly he wants to kiss him goodbye. 

“I think we’ll see more of each other,” he says instead. 

“Do you?” Dan says, unfairly handsome even in his ruined shirt. 

Phil nods. “I’ll be in London myself next year. Maybe... if you have some time between studies…” He sticks his shaking hands in his pockets. 

“Write to me until then?” Dan smiles. His smile is wide, open, dimpled. Phil says he will.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading— come say hi on [tumblr](http://yikesola.tumblr.com/post/188408736424/serendipity-on-a-train-platform) !

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Serendipity on a Train Platform](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24615847) by [yikesola](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yikesola/pseuds/yikesola)


End file.
